Don't need Black Label to make profit: Renuka

NEW DELHI: Tourism minister Renuka Chaudhury claimed on Friday that ITDC was making a profit despite not selling Black or Red Label whiskies.
"Who says the duty-free shops are suffering? My sales are up. I am making profit. People won''t stop drinking liquor if the two brands are not available.
In fact, the absence of these two brands has helped the sales of other brands like Chivas Regal, Glenmorange, Cutty Sark, Jack Daniels, etc."
"You just see, I am going to revamp the whole set-up," she said.
Added the mantri: "People better get used to not having Black Label and Red Label in duty-free shops. It will make them try other brands. In fact, why should I promote only one brand? In many countries, people don''t even know about the two brands we are fighting for. But our people have been hand-in-glove with certain companies to keep their monopoly going."
Asked about the rush to change the 10-year-old ITDC manual that says purchases should be made directly from the manufacturer, and whether the change will only bring in agents or middle-men, Chawdhury said: "The manual is not a law that cannot be changed. If the manufacturer is selling it at a higher rate, why can''t we get it cheaper from agents?" Would cheaper rates not mean spurious liquor coming in? "We will check the certificates." she replied.
She claimed that all the ruckus began when she stopped payment to UDV in the wake of supply of 17 cases without a purchase order. "I got letters from three MPs — K Arvind Sharma, Ajay Chakravarty and Abani Roy — hinting at corruption in ITDC in the purchase of liquor. I ordered an inquiry based on that. I stopped UDV''s payment to facilitate the inquiry."
When pointed out that of the three letters from the MPs, two were iden-tical, word for word, Chaudhury said: "Maybe they had written it together.
But the question is that why wasn''t the procedure followed in procurement of those 17 cases?"
Chaudhury says she has asked the CBI to conduct an inquiry in October.
And she was angry with the then ITDC boss Amitabh Kant for sending inputs to the CBI without showing her the file.
"The CMD has challen-ged my power. Why wasn''t I shown the confidential report?"